The Wire with Alex

ActionStation Aotearoa, KickBack, and over 40 opposition leaders, community leaders, and organisations, launched an open letter on Monday regarding the government’s potential policy to ban rough sleeping in Auckland’s CBD.

The proposed ban, despite the proposal being in its early stages of discussions, has been heavily condemned across the sector, and has raised the question of where those rough sleeping would go?

News and Editorial Director Joel spoke to Aaron Hendry, the General Manager and Co-Founder of KickBack, a youth development organisation responding to homelessness, about this open letter.

At COP30, New Zealand has not joined over 80 countries in signing a global plan to phase out fossil fuels.

Climate Minister Mark Mitchell has defended this move, saying that the government was already committed to “transition away” from fossil fuels, as of two years ago.

News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to Sebastian Gehreke, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Climate and Energy Finance Group at the University of Otago, about COP30 and whether New Zealand’s climate policies are enough to justify not signing this roadmap

For Dear Science this week, our expert, Dr Cushla McGoverin chats with us about moss in space, a use for mosquitos, and how turtles detect magnetic fields

For our weekly catchup with the National Party, Wire Host Sara spoke to MP Carl Bates about the recently updated Social Housing Plan, and the government’s decision to “pause” access to puberty blockers.

For Green World, News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to Sebastian Gehreke, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Climate and Energy Finance Group at the University of Otago, about COP30, and New Zealand not joining over 80 other countries in agreeing to a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels.

Sara also spoke with University of Otago international politics professor Robert Patman about Trump’s peace plan for the Ukraine - Russian war

Recently, a lot of conversation has been had about the curriculum, with the government planning to roll out yet another new and expanded curriculum. This expanded curriculum, beginning in term one of next year, will seek to provide the tools for teachers to educate and assist students with ‘high and complex needs,’ who were otherwise ignored in the existing curriculum, or so the government claims. This comes against the background of this government’s push for effective teaching and learning, based in ‘science’.

However, concerns remain about this curriculum. For starters, this curriculum exists separately from the rest of Aotearoa’s student body; we seem to be getting one curriculum for those with complex needs, and one for those without, dividing our youth. This has led to questions about the role of inclusion in our education, and what it means that the government has not attempted to create one curriculum that can work for all students.

Monday Wire Producer Alex spoke to Senior Lecturer in Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland, Dr Jude MacArthur, about this separate curriculum, what it means for these students, and how it might affect their learning and inclusion.